Much On The Cliffs: The Philosophies of John Ashbery

Winner of multiple awards for literary excellence, writer and educator John Ashbery is a seminal force in modern poetics. In an enlightening installment of Artists On The Cutting Edge, Ashbery reads, and comments on, selected works. Series: "Artists on the Cutting Edge" [8/1997] [Humanities] [Arts and Music] [Show ID: 3260]

[@PK-re3lu]

That must be the most enthusiastic poetry audience I have heard!

[@dion1949]

Make perfect sense--when he reads them.

[@molloyx]

Three Poems is the volume I had the most essential response to [ followed by April Galleons] studying it for months as I tried and failed to get my own work off the ground [ only later to understand the value of bringing the craft to the edge of the nearest cliff] Bartheleme cited it as a primary influence and the connection to Stien is inescapable. JA was also an art critic of some repute and seems to share some DNA w/ Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg. [Those WERE the days]

[@theotormon]

Thank you for this!

[@molloyxx1]

That is an instruction I can follow. I have never heard Carters music, piker that I am, and so very much look forward to my first moment with it. Thanks again and Happy New Year.

[@quagapp]

He is an original. When I first got back to writing I found House Boat Days and I wondered what it was all about - in the end I learned to just read him without worrying about what he meant per se... I also got onto Bartheleme and Borges and later Stein. Lautreamont is important -it took me sometime to find out who all these people were..I like Rauschenberg but I like all kinds of art -I would say Ashbery does also. Also other artists & writers of that time but also more recent and more ancient.

[@clemensetz]

Wonderful.

[@quagapp]

From the great poem in 'The Tennis Court Oath'

[@quagapp]

There is an interview with Carter on here - he 100! But he won the Pulitzer, as did another favourite musician (of Ashbery and myself) Charles Ives. Carter's music takes a bit of getting used to but I like it if I concentrate on it. BTW I feel that one book of JA's that I feel is somewhat overlooked is his - in my view - quite brilliant "A Vermont Note Book" with Joe Brainard.

[@quagapp]

Ashbery was influenced by Frank O'Hara who was his friend in NY as was Koch and Schuyler et al (where for example he was urged by O'Hara to watch a Donald Duck movie - and that night he dreamt about Milton an in the dream Daffy Duck became the devil - so his poem "Daffy Duck in Hollywood"). Also he was in France where he studied the strange surrealist writer Raymond Rousell - he thought of of doing a thesis about. Rousell.

[@dnggitg]

How much longer will I be able to inhabit the divine sepulcher of the penitentiary?

[@quagapp]

Yes he was an art critic which is presumably why he wrote "Self Portrait..." which (the main poem of the book) is a meditation on the portrait painted in convex mirror by the great mannerist painter Pargianino...he refers to art a lot in his work. But then he has stuff about Daffy Duck or things such as "The Universe farted." and so on! But Three Poem he wrote while listening to Eliot Carter. Ashbery has wide musical tastes.

[@molloyxx1]

thanks sombres. Here I confess I have not a clue as to how to access this.

[@dinnerbucket9]

What interests me these days is nexus re Ashbery, Ken Koch and Donald Bartheleme, who has cited both as primary influences [ after Beckett, Gertrude Stein and Echo and the Bunnymen]on his own daft experiments. April Galleons and 3 Poems have been glued, page by page, to my prison cell and the old man has 'caught fire' here at the penitentiatry.

[@quagapp]

Stein, Beckett and Bishop would be influences also - I don't know Bunnymen but Bartheleme's stories are very funny/strange... Are you in prison? I hope you are all right Seems you are enjoying Ashbery etc I was once obssessed by Ashbery for some years - haven't looked at his work for some time.I liked his "Self Portrait .." & "Houseboat Days" - he writes in way analagous to composing music often writing while music is on...I think he is also very much a film buff. Cheers.

[@molloyxx1]

In my case perhaps more like reading Murphy before Molloy.

[@molloyx]

Eliot Carter? Thanks quagapp, I will make sure to search this person out.

[@molloyx]

oh, just long enough